The difference between 32 and nine is 23, an equation I’ve been a little obsessed with in the past few days. Twenty-three has no terrible significance. It’s a prime number, but not much more; it’s neither showy, nor round, has no promise of baked goods, no yardstick by which other achievements or anniversaries are measured. Perhaps the only memory for me involves noting my grandmother’s birthday as the 23rd of each September on many calendars. But those celebrations have passed, and the mini-diaries probably lie in a shoebox in the bottom of some closet back home.
I’m on my way to Iraq again, as soon as today if the military’s air traffic allows. I’m writing from Darmstadt, Germany, and about to get in a car to drive to Ramstein. There, I’ll wait for about four or five hours to see if I get a seat on a cargo flight into Balad, Iraq. I was in Balad two years ago, waiting for a flight in the opposite direction. I expect I’ll get onto the base in the early morning, crawl into a sleeping tent, and rest for a few hours before catching a helicopter into the Green Zone in Baghdad. Once in the Green Zone, I’ll check in with the military’s central press office. By the end of the weekend, I’ll likely be on my way to Fallujah.
The Marines are in Fallujah. Like the Army in Baghdad, the Marines are surging into the city to set up small bases in an effort to rout out the bad guys one block at a time. The Marines run at a different rate than the Army. Here’s one example – they go to Iraq on six-month rotations, then go home for six months. Some are likely on their seventh or eighth tour. Here’s another – Marines make up 14 percent of the deployments so far, and they account for 28 percent of the causalities.
In my perverse, journalistic way, I’m excited to go back. It took a while to feel that way. Two years ago, I was thrilled at the challenge of doing something I’d never done before: cover a war. This time ‘round, I had mixed feelings. Mostly, I felt, why bother. Surge or no surge, budget or no budget, the fights in Congress and on Haifa Street drag on for endless rounds without a sane referee to declare an end. I grew bored with most of the news and found it hard to find any inspiration about going back to war.
Then a twig snapped at home. In one morning, 32 kids and their professors were shot to death. Those who skipped class and jumped out windows lived. Those who had no escape died. It was awful and unimaginable. America and the world turned toward a beaucolic college town to make sense of the violence, somehow made worse for the calculations and randomness carried out at the same time.
Within hours, the Washington Post had 75 people working the story, CNN over 200. Within a day, journalists had written profiles of the fallen, aided by randomly e-mailed comments from friends and family. Within a week, dorms at Virginia Tech posted signs asking the media to stay away. The students had exhausted their patience and ability to answer for the impossible.
That same day in Baghdad, 177 people died in car bombings. The U.S. media covered the news but not the people. I understand why. Knocking on doors in Baghdad can’t be compared with knocking on doors in Blacksburg, so telling the victims’ stories for Western journalists becomes a near impossibility. I hope there are stories on Arabic media and blogs about some of those losses, but I’ve looked, and I don’t have the language skills to find them. Still, I can look at the 32 faces and try, at least, to imagine it multiplied by five. On the Asian side of the world, the Virginia Tech shootings happened on April 17, the anniversary of the beginning of the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields. I cannot imagine multiplying 32 into two million.
Then last week I found a number I could rap my head and outrage around. Nine soldiers died in Iraq in a single explosion. No flags dropped to half-mast, no scores of journalists rushed to inundate their hometowns. Five were college age. Some were from towns called Otis, Browersville, Phoenix, Bad Axe. None of them had the choice to skip the convoy and sleep in that morning, avoiding the random and calculated terror waiting for them.
Grief has no rules, nor should it. We are touched and maddened by events we can feel and taste, those that comprise our identity. Millions of people in America can glimpse the surprising horror of packing a kid or spouse off to college only to learn their classrooms became a murder scene. Fewer know the smells and grit of a convoy ride. A painful handful know the reality of returning from work with fewer friends than when they left, then face the next day knowing it could happen again.
If the nine in Iraq had been 32, would the world have turned? It’s doubtful. It’s even understandable. But it doesn’t make it right. For my part, I remember how the truck fumes smell in the Iraqi summer, and the before and after of convoy rides. Those are stories I can tell.
I’m on my way to Iraq again, as soon as today if the military’s air traffic allows. I’m writing from Darmstadt, Germany, and about to get in a car to drive to Ramstein. There, I’ll wait for about four or five hours to see if I get a seat on a cargo flight into Balad, Iraq. I was in Balad two years ago, waiting for a flight in the opposite direction. I expect I’ll get onto the base in the early morning, crawl into a sleeping tent, and rest for a few hours before catching a helicopter into the Green Zone in Baghdad. Once in the Green Zone, I’ll check in with the military’s central press office. By the end of the weekend, I’ll likely be on my way to Fallujah.
The Marines are in Fallujah. Like the Army in Baghdad, the Marines are surging into the city to set up small bases in an effort to rout out the bad guys one block at a time. The Marines run at a different rate than the Army. Here’s one example – they go to Iraq on six-month rotations, then go home for six months. Some are likely on their seventh or eighth tour. Here’s another – Marines make up 14 percent of the deployments so far, and they account for 28 percent of the causalities.
In my perverse, journalistic way, I’m excited to go back. It took a while to feel that way. Two years ago, I was thrilled at the challenge of doing something I’d never done before: cover a war. This time ‘round, I had mixed feelings. Mostly, I felt, why bother. Surge or no surge, budget or no budget, the fights in Congress and on Haifa Street drag on for endless rounds without a sane referee to declare an end. I grew bored with most of the news and found it hard to find any inspiration about going back to war.
Then a twig snapped at home. In one morning, 32 kids and their professors were shot to death. Those who skipped class and jumped out windows lived. Those who had no escape died. It was awful and unimaginable. America and the world turned toward a beaucolic college town to make sense of the violence, somehow made worse for the calculations and randomness carried out at the same time.
Within hours, the Washington Post had 75 people working the story, CNN over 200. Within a day, journalists had written profiles of the fallen, aided by randomly e-mailed comments from friends and family. Within a week, dorms at Virginia Tech posted signs asking the media to stay away. The students had exhausted their patience and ability to answer for the impossible.
That same day in Baghdad, 177 people died in car bombings. The U.S. media covered the news but not the people. I understand why. Knocking on doors in Baghdad can’t be compared with knocking on doors in Blacksburg, so telling the victims’ stories for Western journalists becomes a near impossibility. I hope there are stories on Arabic media and blogs about some of those losses, but I’ve looked, and I don’t have the language skills to find them. Still, I can look at the 32 faces and try, at least, to imagine it multiplied by five. On the Asian side of the world, the Virginia Tech shootings happened on April 17, the anniversary of the beginning of the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields. I cannot imagine multiplying 32 into two million.
Then last week I found a number I could rap my head and outrage around. Nine soldiers died in Iraq in a single explosion. No flags dropped to half-mast, no scores of journalists rushed to inundate their hometowns. Five were college age. Some were from towns called Otis, Browersville, Phoenix, Bad Axe. None of them had the choice to skip the convoy and sleep in that morning, avoiding the random and calculated terror waiting for them.
Grief has no rules, nor should it. We are touched and maddened by events we can feel and taste, those that comprise our identity. Millions of people in America can glimpse the surprising horror of packing a kid or spouse off to college only to learn their classrooms became a murder scene. Fewer know the smells and grit of a convoy ride. A painful handful know the reality of returning from work with fewer friends than when they left, then face the next day knowing it could happen again.
If the nine in Iraq had been 32, would the world have turned? It’s doubtful. It’s even understandable. But it doesn’t make it right. For my part, I remember how the truck fumes smell in the Iraqi summer, and the before and after of convoy rides. Those are stories I can tell.
2 comments:
Enjoy that chow hall near-beer, Teri. They'll be real ones waiting for you when you swing back Korea's way.
I will stop to smell the fumes the next time I am out and think of the lives of soldiers who are doing their jobs, and you too. Thanks for telling the stories. I will read them.
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